They mentioned my app in their latest video featuring a comparison between Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and Crysis 2!

Linkage!

Thank you!

http://wasdie.blogspot.com/2011/03/little-crysis-2-app-that-could.html

And for those who don't know.

Hey guys I just wrote a program that will build you an autoexe.cfg file for Crysis 2. This should help everybody here who wants some more advanced graphics options. :D

Downloads (version 1.7):

MediaFire

Requirements:
Crysis 2
.Net 2.0 or higher
Windows XP, Vista, or 7

Basic instructions:

1. Once you have unziped place anywhere you want.
2. Delete any autoexec.cfg files found in the Crysis 2 root folder. (if you're asking what that is, don't worry about it)
3. Delete any target commands you may have put on the shortcut as they will override the autoexec.cfg that is created
4. Run the Crysis2AdvancedGraphicsOptions.exe
5. Hit apply once all settings are set
6. If it's not working right, try running the program in administrator mode

EDIT: Version 1.5 is out!

Changes (Verison 1.5)
*added HDR brightness level
*added Bloom level
*skipped initial login by default
*possibly fixed the no-motion blur bugs
*creates a seperate autoexec.cfg file where you open the .exe file for more easy editing.

Changes (Version 1.4)
*added Shadows option
*added SSAO Option
*added color grading option
*added VSync option
*motion blur should now disable when set to disabled
*fixed some minor bugs

Changes (Version 1.3)
*fixed MSAA - should work now
*fixed crouch toggle - should work better
*added ability to change to preset low, medium, high

Changes
*added an option to toggle crouch
*should save a small ini file to eliminate repeated selecting of file locations
*displays root folder of Crysis 2 (so you know if you're on the right spot)

It's finally back! :cry:

Linkage to my thoughts.

I made a new blog poster... well more of a blog rant, about Crysis 2. Here's the link.

To sum it up, I'm not happy. Cryteck has completely ripped out everything that made Crysis 1 a PC game and has gone completely in favor of the Call of Duty console fanboys. To think I actually defended this game...

So I've decided to move to a more personal blog. I have been posting stuff there instead of here on Gamespot.

Here's the link. I think from now on I'll make a new blog post here and link to the offsite one.

I understand people saying BFBC2 is a console port (because it technically is) but I don't think it matters nearly as much.

I own the 360 version of BFBC2 and I have over 40 hours into the game. Recently I bought the PC version and have sunk about 20 hours into that. I can tell you from my experience that the PC version is much more refined than the console version. Let me explain.

The biggest difference I noticed gameplay wise was the shooting mechanics. They didn't lower the recoil of the guns on the PC version compared to the console version. The way the camera bobs and the guns control were really built around a controller yet they were built in such a way they work just perfectly on the PC. What you get is more recoil and more camera bob than anything requiring you to really focus your shots and shoot in bursts. LMGs can be pretty much sprayed, but much like in real life, when somebody is shooting a constant spray of bullets at your position, odds are a couple are going to hit you. They make up in quantity what they lack in quality. Play ArmA 2 and just spray like mad with the M249 to understand what I'm talking about.

The next thing I noticed was the sniping. How many PC games outside of the sims actually account for bullet travel time and drop (in fact all guns have this effect). The old BF games didn't even do this. This has only made sniping far more rewarding and skill based. The guns are all extremely satisfying to shoot and there is nothing quite like getting a headshot from clear across the map on a moving target.

Another massive difference I noticed was the hitboxes. They are smaller on the PC version, much smaller. On the PC version to get a headshot you have to be pretty much dead on (at least in my experience), a little to the right or left and you're going to miss. On my 360 version this is not the case at all. The hitboxes on the console versions are far larger making the game work much better with a controller. It seems DICE noticed this and fixed it up properly on the PC. When I first started playing it I realized that you gotta be dead on with your shots or you're not killing anything. It took me some time to adjust. Also I have to use a whole different set a weapons on the PC version than I did on the 360 version. Before I would just pick powerful weapons, now I need to balance both accuracy and range.

I know most PC gamers here gripe about the lack of prone, smaller map sizes, smaller player counts, and no jets, but this was actually a result not of consolization, but rather DICE trying to refine the Battlefield formula so it is far more consistent with the action.

Remember in Battlefield 1942, Vietnam, 2, or even 2142, how you could easily finish a great battle and then be stuck in the middle of nowhere for a long time with absolutely nothing to do but walk across the map just to get to the next fight? DICE has always been combating this since the first battlefield game. Why do you think that squad play was first implemented? It was an early attempt at making the game more consistent with action while opening up new strategies.

The Bad Company series has been kind of an experiment for DICE. They completely understand the maps are smaller and the Rush gamemode is linear, but this only partially do to them having to fit this experience on a console. I read that DICE was limited to 24 players on the consoles because of bandwidth limitations, not hardware limitations because the levels in the single player and even the multiplayer can be just as big as BF2 levels if not bigger. Some of the levels of Battlefield Bad Company 1 on the Xbox 360 and PS3 had levels even larger than those found in BF2. It wasn't an engine limitation, rather it was a bandwidth limitation for their multiplayer. Obviously the PC doesn't have this as much, but I would almost say with all of the crap this engine has to send between the server and the clients (the console version also uses dedicated servers) that a 64 player version of this game on the current engine may not be the most lag free experience ever. Hell even on 32 player servers with lower pings it's still not nearly as tight as a game of CSS. There is just to much going on.

Anyways aside from that little tech thing, the idea behind the Rush gamemode was to make the game much more consistent with the action. Instead of just playing whack-a-capture-point from across a large map, now everything is focused on two points at a time. DICE was smart in still leaving tons of tactical gameplay options available. Flanking is still extremely important, using the terrain is much more awesome because it actually gets all deformed and blowed up, and the focus is still on teamwork. These were always a part of the core BF experience (except for destructible environments, which is a hell of a good addition).

The new squad system also was refined from the old to help the game be more teambased and consistent with the action. Now more than just a single squad leader can be spawned off of which makes it easier to stay in the action or even to spread across the larger maps more quickly, keeping us in the action. I think this is an improvement, but I do understand how a more hierarchy of rank in a game can be awesome too (the commander mode where the commander talks to the squad leaders.) I guess I really don't care which one is used. To be honest the commander mode is cool but can be very annoying when nobody wants to do it or your commander sucks.

Another big omission in BFBC2 is prone, and this is where everybody really gets up in arms. The omission of prone is not because of technical limitations or a controller problem (CoD still has prone on the consoles, Battlefield 2 Modern Combat had prone). This was another omission due to DICE trying to keep the game consistent. Not only did it solve the dolphin-diving problem (though that can be fixed other ways), it forces players to stay moving. Camping is much more difficult than it has ever been. This keeps the game flowing. Defensive players can still camp around a bit, but they can't just stay stationary in a single prone position. Even more, attackers are now forced to be moving fast and keep moving instead of just lying down for cover and slowly moving forward. I think the game has actually benefited from the increased pace. It keeps games moving more quickly without the loss of tactical gameplay.

Finally the loss of jets. Now I have said this before and I will continue to say it until I die, jets have no place in a Battlefield game. They are FAR to overpowered and FAR to difficult to counter to ever make any sense. A jet can zip across the map in 30 seconds in BF2. Not only that but it takes 3 sam missiles to take it down but the plane has countermeasures and can usually out maneuver the AAA fire. So what happens is that a jet simply dominates the entire game to the point where getting in armor isn't even worth it. When trying to capture a point, the enemy jet just flies over, drops all of its bombs right on your face and kills your entire squad, then quickly rearms and is back in the fight.

The real problem with balancing jets is that there are also helicopters flying around. You make a sam site that can kill a jet in a single shot and flies extremely fast and nimbly, helios have no chance. That's the real problem. Give everybody shoulder launched stinger missles, helios stand no chance. The omission of jets and a focus on helios makes more sense especially for the scale of the battlefields. Even in BF2 the maps were tiny when considering jets. Jet planes operate over an airspace of 500kms+, BF2 maps are under 10km, Bad Compay 2 maps are even smaller. It doesn't make any sense at all.

What I'm trying to say is that Battlefield Bad Company 2 is not as much of a console port as you may think. It was really just DICE trying new things to update the Battlefield formula. I noticed this back with the first Bad Company. It's obvious that DICE took a whole new direction instead of trying to put their old game on a console. I think the new direction (which isn't that far from the old, but it's still different enough to consider it new) is a great step. I firmly believe that Battlefield 3 will be a great mix of the two. It will play much slower as it is a direct sequel to Battlefield 2, but I believe a lot of stuff that was introduced in the Bad Company series will find its way into Battlefield 3. This will only make the game series much stronger and more fun.

Last week, October 5th, 2010, I went and saw Muse live in the Target Center in Minneapolis MN. I can now die happy.

I was very surprised to hear how much they matched their studio recordings. It was spot on except for one thing. In real life they are much heavier. Much more distortion and bass. In between songs they improved metal and did some small covers. They played for an hour and a half straight with no breaks.

The stage was also amazingly awesome. When I first came into the stadium I saw a bunch of musical equipment on the front of the the state with 3 large rectangular structures in the middle. A crappy band called Passion Pit (sorry if you like them, they just were not that good) came out and played a few songs infront of these giant pillars.

After Passion Pit was finished, the house lights came back on and the stadium continued to fill. What seemed like two life times passed and finally the house lights went out, orchestral music from the Exogenesis Symphony Part 1 started to play and the 3 large pillars lit up. They showed silhouette of men walking up stairs of buildings. All in order, all looking very depressed.

The music started to crescendo and get louder and louder the men started to fall like dominos down the stairs. From behind the strings you could start to hear a drum beat and base getting louder and louder. As they hit their peak the rectangular pillers dropped their cloth covering to the ground as Mathew Bellamy started to sing. To my suprise, the band wasn't behind the pillars... no they were suspened in the middle of them, about 15-20 feet in the air.

To say it was epic is a massive understatement. On each side of the pillars that the band was suspended on were giant screens that would play awesome visualizations or show the members of the band or crowd. They were always changing with the mood of the music, always displaying something AWESOME. The band's music filled the entire stadium and the energy from the crowd could probably be felt 2 blocks away.

They stayed suspended on the platforms for awhile. The 2nd song they played was Knights of Cydonia, which was a big suprise as it is by far their biggest song. The energy from the crowd was estactic. As they were playing the song the bottom pillars that they were preforming on started to lower into the ground and became level with the stage.

During the entire concert those pillars would move up and down, making the stage very dynamic. The visulizations were also always changing and the light show was the best I've ever seen... and I've seen Rush live.

About 4 or 5 songs in, Matt busted out the piano. It was the sexiest piano I have ever seen. The keys were backlit by green LEDs, the inside of the case was a mirror, and within the piano there were lights which would reflect off of the mirror. It was awesome.

I have a video that I'm attempting to upload to GS, but it has no audio. I'll try to get a youtube one up.

[video=cHRnlmb45bMOszff]

YouTube Link

Anyways the whole concert was brilliant. There were some awesome duets between Chris and Dominic.

But then crap really got real when Matt busted out the keytar. Yes, I said keytar. (crappy photo)

By the end of the concert I was horse from singing every single song, my ears rang with awesome metal riffs, and I was about to collapse from exhaustion, but the concert was absolutely brilliant. They didn't talk much at all, they just played song after song doing riffs, improv, and covers inbetween songs. There was never a moment without music.

If you ever have a chance to see these guys life you owe it to yourself to do it. They throw one of the best live shows you'll ever see in your life. I leave you with the last photo that I deemed worthy of showing. It's of the amazing light show.

Tomorrow at this time I will be at a Muse concert. Apparently they throw one of the best live shows ever. I can't wait.

Yes, it was worth making a blog post about.

Since the beginning of this generation I have been saying that Japanese developers are way to behind the times. Of course this always met with a giant wall of flaming from the fanboys.

However it looks like a Capcom developer completely agrees with me.

http://tgs.gamespot.com/story/6276630/japanese-game-makers-five-years-behind-inafune/?tag=latestheadlines%3Btitle%3B1

Speaking with The New York Times, Inafune said, "I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone's making awful games; Japan is at least five years behind." He was particularly critical of game designers who find success in a genre and then stick to their established formula, saying that approach no longer works.

Gamespot

Your move fanboys.

Homeworld

It is my favorite game. It's, in my opinion, is the best game ever made. It was so well made, had perfect gameplay balances, was cinematic, and had one of the best stories in a video game ever. Playing it today doesn't feel like you're playing some old retro game with crappy menus and clunky controls, it holds up against the newest titles today. The online was very interesting as the emphasis was on controlling the map and resource gathering. Unlike Starcraft, you had to go get your resources very far from your mothership or carrier, making them very vunerable. Battles usually took place out in spots in space, not near the motherships.

Seriously some of the most fun I've ever had with a RTS ever.

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

This is arcade flight perfection here. The missions were massive with just TONS of stuff going on. Each battle felt more epic than the last. The story was told through beautifully hand drawn stills and narrated by a pretty talented voice actor. Although the story got a bit cheesy, you'll never forget some of the levels. Epic soundtrack, massive scale, excellent graphics, and tons of action are what makes this game a genre definer. You'll never forget your battle with Stonehenge or the massive battle against Megalith.

Diablo 2

Does this game really even need a freaken introduction? It's Blizzard at its finest!

ArmA Series

Really if you've seen my sig you know I absolutly love the ArmA series. ArmA and ArmA 2 with their expansions have provided me with near 1000 hours of gameplay. I love playing co-op, I love making missions, I love the tactical feel, and I really just love the community. Great mods, great people, good times. Haters gunna hate, this game satisfies a deeper level of shooting most games just can't hit.

Total War Series

I know I'm lumping lots of games together with these whole "series" things, but since the gameplay is always so damn similar and I really just loved every second of each of the games pretty much equally. I'm a fan of strategy games that move a bit slower AND are persisent (which is why Homeworld is the best game ever made). Total War is one of the first RTSs that really embraced the idea of the large scale battles but then decided to make each battle actually mean something on a larger conflict, it's really awesome. Makes every single engagement mean something much more than your APM and winning at all costs. There are also moments that the Total War games bring that you can't get anywhere else in gameing.

Half Life 2

What can I say, I drove 1 hour and paid 20 bucks at a lan cafe just to play the first few levels of this game on a PC when it came out in 2004. It was worth every penny. I've since had the fortune of owning several gaming PCs and be able to play through it mulitple times, never gets old. I love the story, love the look, love everything about it.

Halo Combat Evolved

I always get flamed for this one, but I think it's the best FPS ever. I'm not even going to bother justifying that, you all by now should know the reasons for that. Also it had "The Library"... probably the best FPS level ever.

Call of Duty

Ok it's obvious now, I love my FPSs, especially WWII ones. In 2005 when CoD came out nobody had played anything like it. It was Medal of Honor Allied Assault on steroids and a completely different approach. Gone was the days you were completely alone. The battle's were HUGE and cinimatic, the levels were brilliant, the action was intense, the voice acting suprisingly good, online was a blast, and the fact you were rarely alone on the battle field was something other games only ever gave you a glimps of. It's amazing.

I just love gaming to much.